SOLOMNISHVILI WINERY | #22 | Saperavi | 2018
saperavi

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Tonight we’ve decided to review a special wine – a single-varietal saperavi wine from the famous Kakheti region of Georgia – #22 Saperavi 2018 by Solomnishvili Winery. Saperavi (which translates into english as ‘color‘ or ‘dye‘) is Georgia’s main red variety and a teinturier grape, which means that the flesh of the berry is also dark, thus the resulting wines are very deep in color with high natural acidity and firm tannins, which makes them respond well to ageing. Although Georgia is the birthplace of saperavi, there are a handful of other countries that also grow and produce high-quality saperavi wines. In its homeland in Georgia, some wineries traditionally label their saperavi wines as black wine instead of red wine. Most of the georgian saperavi wines are traditionally aged in qvevri (egg-shaped clay vessels that are buried in the ground in order to maintain constant cool temperature throughout the year) as they were 8000 years ago. This particular wine comes from the tiny Solomnishvili family vineyard (only 0.2 hectares of 20-years old saperavi vines, planted on 400m of altitude on clay, gravel and limestone-rich soil), where vines are planted with very high density. Since the vines are planted very close together, machinery cannot access them and therefore all the work in the vineyard is done by the hands of Giorgi Solomnishvili. After the grapes are harvested, vinification takes place using the traditional qvevri ageing method, then the wine is transferred in french oak barrels, where it is aged for 18 months in order to gain more complexity and structure. But enough theory, that said and without further ado, let’s take a look at the wine tasting results.
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Take a look at the tasting notes below and our detailed assessment of the wine:

//Visual
colour: deep & opaque purple color
clarity: hazy indigo shades on the rim

//Olfactory
intensity: pronounced & expressive
fruit profile: red fruits | black fruits | blue fruits
__red fruits: overripe sour cherry
__black fruits: black plum | blackberry | black cherry | aronia berry
__blue fruits: blue plum | blueberry
fruit character: overripe

//Flavor
non fruit: spice | oak | earth | other
__spice: peppercorn | cloves | nutmeg | anise
__oak: liquorice | roasted oakwood |  charred wood
__earthy: charcoal | pencil lead
__other: new leather | varnish
primary layer: fruit & oak

//Palate
sweetness: bone dry
acidity: high
alcohol: high
tannin: high
__grip: grippy
balance: good
__dominant: tannin
body: firm | full body

//Taste
fruit profile: black fruits
fruit character: overripe
non fruit: spice & oak
finish: medium
aftertaste: seedy-crisp

//Scoring
SOLOMNISHVILI WINERY | #22 | Saperavi | 2018
variety: saperavi
country: Georgia
region: Kakheti
rating: 93.3

//Conclusion
maturity: youthful | needs more time | age for 3 or 4 years
verdict: fine | highly recommended
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This is definitely a fine great of Georgia and, with a total of 93.3 points scored, this wine is right there, among the best wines we’ve rated so far. Check our complete database on the wine rating page, where you can find all the wines that we have tasted and reviewed or go to the about us page and find out more about our exquisite rating system.

Verdict: this is a quite youthful, firm and grippy saperavi wine, with a nuanced, fruity-oaky accent on the nose and a muscular mouthfeel. It is still in the development phase, therefore we would recommend to give it 3 or 4 more years of bottle ageing, in order to allow the wine to round up and get one step closer to its full potential, but make sure you don’t overdo it, as it is always better to drink a wine a year too soon than a day too late. On the nose the wine brings a mixture of overripe black and blue fruits and some nuanced oak-derived notes in the foreground, followed by a spicy and dusty background and a very subtle, earthy layer in between the two. On the palate the wine delivers exuberant acidity, grippy tannins and quite a touch of alcoholic warmth that is showing through on the mouthfeel, which leads to a seedy-crisp aftertaste. All in all, this is one of the best saperavi wines we have tasted so far – bold, potent and massive – a wine with a huge ageing potential, that in its current state lacks a bit of elegance and finesse on the palate. We believe it will pair quite nicely with any spicy or grilled meats, like for example a peppercorn-crusted tomahawk steak or a rosemary-garlic flank steak. Cheers!

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